And as you can see, "ough" can produce a myriad of sounds seemingly randomly. In addition, these endings may rhyme different in other dialects of English as well. Therefore linguists cannot rely on such whimsical system to scientifically represent sounds in a language. The solution was the creation of symbols explicitly designed to represent all sounds that humans can produce. We call such systems "Phonetic Alphabets".

Unfortunately concensus is the last thing linguists have between them and consequently several systems exist. The most famous one is the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA, but the American Phonetic Alphabet is also quite widespread. I have chosen to adhere to the American system in this page because that's what I've been taught in. If you are familiar with the IPA there shouldn't really be any problems once you understand corresponding equivalent symbols in the two systems.

The following are some of the signs of the American phonetic system. When used for transcription, sounds are put inside square brackets, ie [ ]. Related and similar sounds in a language often occur in complementary distribution, that is, each of these sounds appear only in unique situations. For example, in English, the "t" in "top" sounds different from that in "stop". However, the "t"-sound in "stop" (which is less powerful the the "t" in the beginning of a word) only occurs after a "s" sound, while the "t" in "top" occurs everywhere else, and therefore these two sounds are in complementary distribution. We call this set of sounds a phoneme, and write it between two slashes, ie / /.

Formally, /t/ becomes [t] after [s], and becomes [th] everywhere else. The superscript h means that the consonant before it is produced with a little more air.

Consonants:

Some important points:

V+ denoted "voiced", and V- is "voiceless".
Voiceless and voiced simply mean that whether the vocal cords
vibrate while making a sound. If you put your hand on your
throat and alternate between saying "cod" and "god", you'll
notice that "god" makes your vocal cord (or larynx) vibrates
more. This is called voiced.

[p], [t], and [k] are unaspirated. For people who know Spanish
well, they correspond to the sounds in 'pelo',
'té', and 'cosa'. Such sounds do not
occur alone in English, but mostly after the consonant [s],
such as in 'space'. Compare 'space' and 'pace', and you'll
notice how the /p/ in 'pace' is stronger.

As just mentioned, the sounds /p/, /t/, and /k/ in English
occuring at the beginning of the word is aspirated,
meaning that more air is pushed out. In Linguistics they are
transcribed as [ph], [th], and
[kh]. You may think that is impossible to have
aspirated /b/, /t/, and /g/, but Proto-Indo-European and
Indic languages have them (like in the name of the great
Indian epic Mahabharata).

The columns on the chart refer to points of articulation, that
is, places in your mouth where sounds are produced.
Bilabial means both of your lips come together, and the
sound comes out there (you can feel the vibration between your
lips if you try).
Labio-dental between your upper lip touches your lower
teeth. Inter-dental sounds are relatively rare in the
world, and what you do is put your tongue between your two
rows of teeth.

Apico-alveolar means putting the tip of your blade right
behind your upper row of teeth. Apico-palatal sounds
are also called Retroflex. They are pronounced like the
Apico-aveolar except with your tongue curled back a little.
The most common example for an American English speaker is the
'r' in "road". Retroflex /d/ and /t/ occur in Indian languages
(both Indo-European and Dravidian).

Lamino-palatals are very much like apico-palatals but
instead having the tip of your tongue as the highest point
the blade, the part behind the tip, almost touches the
roof of your mouth.

Dorso-velar, or just velar, sounds are produced
between the back of your tongue and the back of your palate.
Its cousin, Uvular makes your uvula vibrates, like
Parisian French /r/.

Glottal simply means your larynx.

The categories that form the bold rows refer to the type of
articulation. Stops are sounds that are maintained
for a very short amount of time. You can't stretch no matter
how hard you try. On the other hand, Fricatives can
persists for forever. Compare between /t/ and /s/.

Sometimes you can merge stops and fricatives to get
Affricates, which starts as a stop and turns into a
fricative. The /ch/ in English "church" is just an example
of an affricate. It starts as a /t/, and turns into a
/sh/ sound.

Nasals are, well, nasal. They make your sinus
vibrates.

I have no idea why Liquids are called liquids. The
voiced apico-palatal liquid /r/ occurs in American English
"red" and the voiced apico-alveolar liquid /l/ is like in
English "lock", not "table".

The flap is the Spanish short /r/, ie in "toro". Also occurs
in Italian, Japanese, and American English in the form of
the /dd/ in "ladder" or /tt/ in "butter" said rapidly.

Semi-vowels are really vowels that appear as the
less-powerful part of a diphthong. In other words, they
are non-syllabic vowels.

Vowels:

Even though they look like English, don't be tempted to pronounce the symbols as if they were English letters. For instance, the symbol [i] really sounds like the 'ee' in "reed". The symbol [e] doesn't sound like the 'e' in 'be', but more like French 'être'.

When you say a vowel, you unconsciously change your tongue and lip into an unique configuration characterized by three attributes:

Unrounded vs rounded. This feature applies to your
lip. If you say [u] as like "room", you'll notice that your
lips forming a circle and you look like you're about to
kiss someone. On the other hand, if you say [i] as in
"feet" your lips are straight. That's why before you take
a picture in America you will tell the people you're about
to capture on film to say "cheese", because [i] makes the
lips look like smiling.

High to low. You probably never noticed this, but
when you say a vowel part of your tongue will raise toward the
roof of your mouth while other parts will stay near the bottom.
The height of your tongue's peak determines the vowel you
say. The sound [i] like in "feet" forces your tongue higher up
than, say, the sound [a] as in "father".

Front, central, and back. This same peak that I just
described above can also change in position in your mouth.
When the peak is closest to your teeth, it is in front.
Toward the throat is back. Between the two is,
obviously, central. With [i], the peak of the tongue
is a little bit behind your teeth, while with [u] the peak
of the tongue is at the back of your mouth, near where the
hard palate changes to the soft palate. If you can't picture
it, try feeling around with your finger.

Vowels can be long or short. A long vowel is
denoted by a colon (:) after the vowel. The best example
in English of long vs short can be found in cases like "sad"
(long) and "sat" (short). Notice how the 'a' (phonetically
[æ]) sounds longer in "sad" than in "sat". So, "sad" is
transcribed as [sæ:d] while "sat" is [sæt].